Why Glasses

Listen, drinking wine out of a mason jar is charming when you’re at a wedding. It’s less charming when you’re hosting a dinner party. If you’re over the age of 24, you need some wine glasses.

But do you need both red and white glasses, or can you get away with one multi-use set? The answer to that question, like almost everything related to this topic, is subjective.

Some aficionados (we won’t say snobs) turn their refined noses up at the idea of drinking white wine from a red wine glass or vice versa. Some even insist on matching their glassware with specific varietals, which may seem silly until you consider that many European beer bars match their glasses to specific brands of beer – a rare instance of beer snobbery exceeding wine snobbery.

What’s the justification for using specific glasses for specific wines, and should you care? Red wine glasses are generally larger and more bulbous to allow full access to their “larger” flavors. Per Wine Enthusiast:

In general Reds are bigger and bolder wines so they require a larger glass to allow all those aromas and flavors to emerge.

To paraphrase this in logical structure: “If you have a wine with big flavor, you should use a big glass.”

But consider the inverse of this statement: “If you do not have a wine with big flavor, you should not use a big glass.” Does that make sense? Does drinking a “small” wine (such as a white) out of a “big” glass somehow hurt the experience? We doubt it. Therefore, if you’re only going to buy one set of glasses for all your wine drinking, you should buy the red set.

That said, drinking white wine out of a big glass just … doesn’t feel right. So if you’re sensitive to social manners and mores you should consider getting both sets to quiet the part of your brain that wants things done the right way.

And if you’re 21-24 years old, keep drinking your wine out of mason jars and rocks glasses. Enjoy your freedom from societal conventions while you have it.